Queen of Ruin
When Marie barged into her room later that evening, Renia could only sigh.
She knew it.
She'd known about a hundred men like this Count Mott character and she was sure she would go on to know hundreds more in her lifetime. For the most part, they were safe to ignore as long as they weren't in the position for their ego to do too much damage, but every once in a while one would get loose from the kennel and cause a stir. From the Headmaster's unconcerned demeanor, she made the assumption that Count Mott was in a safely ignorable position. She should have remembered when and where she was. She should have remembered the balance of society in this world, where the dog could get out and kill a few rats with none to care.
Save for the rats.
"You want me to - what?" Renia asked as she looked up into the mirror, a new addition to her room and probably exorbitantly costly. What did she know of the means of making mirrors? Underneath snarling wooden carvings of griffons, Marie's red faced reflection played with the sleeves of her new cream and blue dress.
"Stop her! Him! Anything!"
"You say that as if it were within my power to stop," she replied, slightly incredulous. What was with this culture? Or was she just seeing the results of ignorance? No one could just order anyone about with impunity for no reason, not unless one was a noble and you were a commoner. It didn't quite extrapolate the same all the way up.
Marie shook in place. "You're the queen."
"I'm a queen," Renia snapped back. She was dressed for bed, having removed all of her jewelry and wearing just a simple cotton shift. It felt like she was back in her first year of marriage, every so often having to remind herself. I did it. I did it. I'm queen, I'm queen. "I'm certainly not his queen, or in any position of authority over a Count of Tristain without grossly overstepping my bounds. It's simply not -"
"Politics!?" The girl burst out. "It's always politics with you people, never about what's right - "
She knew what ruling as according to 'what's right' got a country, and it was something she swore never to be a part of ever again. 'What's right' simply bred the buzzards and maggots that thrived as parasites on 'what is wrong' with little to no recourse.
"Like it or not, it is the truth - "
"I don't like it!" Marie howled, stomping her foot in a childish display. Edmund had never done that, even when he was a child. No, her son prefered to fold his arms crossed his chest like he saw his father do, and pout. Why was she remembering this?
Something was welling up inside her, begging to be let free.
Why was she remembering this?
Renia turned back to the mirror, and the griffons became two headed imperial eagles and serpentine dragons carved from gold. She tore her eyes away to the dull, grey stone walls and remembered elaborate wooden carvings out of grey, white and red marble. The ceiling sprouted a chandelier from her memory, a crystal one with a thousand hanging chimes shining rainbows on the floor.
Lost, Руин's voice mocked her. Lost, sorceress.
"Why does it matter?" Marie's voice cut through the haze of memory. "You could do whatever you want - "
"Look at me!" Renia thundered, shocking the words right off the girl's tongue. How dare she. How dare she remind her - the hastily cauterized wound was flayed open beneath a red hot poker covered in salt grit. She nearly shook with fury, gritting her teeth as she set aside the urge to tear the chit apart. Had she but the slightest lack of restraint, had she had not her pride, she would have butchered this pathetic institution the moment she found herself able to stand!
She would have died.
Control, she insisted. She was no mere demon's whore, she was a sorceress. Control. Focus. She had her pride. She would hold herself to her standards. She had to. They meant something.
It meant something.
"Look at me," she repeated quieter. "Everything in here but a single dress and some jewelry is borrowed. I own nothing. Where are my knights, Marie?"
Her attendant trembled, blue eyes wide and tearing as they darted around the room.
"Where are my judges to look over a service contract and declare it invalid? Where are my arbiters to make the arrest? What people do my laws and customs apply to, Marie? Where am I queen of?"
"Rutenia," she whispered in turn.
"I was summoned," she said with a humorless bark of laughter. "I'm lost. I am not entirely sure where my kingdom is on the bloody map!" She waved a hand. "North, somewhere. Hundreds of leagues away by sea, at least, across an entire mountain range and cold desert for who knows how far, even were I to find the Paths - " she interrupted herself, before she gave it all away to a servant girl. "- what do I have beside my name and crown?"
"He has to listen, at least!" Marie rallied. "You are worth more than he is, he has to listen to you!"
Worth?
If anyone on this wretched plane of existence were to find out the truth, she'd be worth nothing.
Less than nothing.
They would brand her.
"Siesta accepted, you said so yourself. What right do I have to interfere?" When Marie didn't answer, Renia smiled thinly. It had never been about rights with Marie, but about power. She knew that mindset well. "By what God given right does Rutenia pass judgment on Tristain?"
Marie flinched, tears now freely flowing.
"You're better," she said, voice aching with some emotion Renia couldn't place. "You're better."
"We aren't," she could only say. A peasant serf had no more rights than the common folk of Halkeginia, in fact he may have even less as property of the land. To be bought and sold like cattle, from one master to another. She knew first hand that the grass was not any greener on the other side, it was just as dead and brown as it was everywhere else. The only solution was to rip it up down to the bedrock, and start over again. "We are simply different."
"Renia," Marie whispered. "Please."
"This is a problem of her own making," Renia replied coldly. "She should have said no."
The way Marie looked at her then was fascinating. She could see the minute shift in opinion in the way the blue eyes narrowed and wide lips thinned until they whitened. She could see it in the way Marie balled her fists and hid them behind her back as if she could just forget she had hands, so that they wouldn't do something she would regret.
"You don't understand," Marie bit out low, dangerously. "You people never understand. We can't say no."
Renia was well aware that people sold themselves for little. She knew people valued themselves too low, that inconsequential things like avoiding discomfort or pain were worth anything at all. That sentimental things like reputation or family were things people clung to. She was aware of it. One could always refuse. It just meant you had to accept the consequences that came with it. It was one of the basic lessons; price yourself accurately.
Her mother had helped her learn.
Weakness was death.
"Then it remains your problem, that you must solve." Renia shook her head and allowed herself to sigh as she picked up the brush, and ran it through a dark lock of gently curling hair. "What do you have that Count Mott would want in exchange for your friend?"
Marie's eyes simply narrowed further.
"And if he gets violent?" Renia asked mildly. "What then?"
"You - " Marie stopped, eyes lighting on the gold chain sleeve with its red rubies lying on the dresser. She blanched as her gaze dropped to the floor, where the sanguine flow of blood Renia coughed up remained as a faint stain. "Oh."
"Yes," she said dryly. "Oh." She allowed the brush to calm her, to settle the seething anger into something she could channel productively. She had said nothing that wasn't the truth, but the fact remained that if she were to insist, she might be accommodated. There was nothing in it for her, though. The girl had accepted the job. It would make things awkward and paint a far less sympathetic view of her to the nobility of this land if they believed she would condemn them for doing nothing illegal, or even particularly immoral. There was nothing in it for her. She would have to pick and choose her battles, and waging one based merely on simple fear of exploitation on the behalf of a peasant was absurd.
There was nothing in it for her.
There was nothing in it for her.
She held up her other hand free of the brush, and the single ruby in the palm of her Arcanum twisted itself free. She hesitated for the slightest moment. She would be careful, she promised herself. She would be careful. She set the brush down and stood up, holding the red gem out gingerly, as if touching it was painful. Marie was quick to take it from her.
"To - to buy - ?"
"You must be the one to find a solution to this," Renia informed her with a slight shake of her head. If she was reading Marie right, and she was, there could be only one outcome to this. "But if worst comes to worst, you have my permission to use my magic against him."
Shock thrummed through Marie's frame. "But I can't! I - "
"You can," Renia said simply as she closed Marie's fingers around the ruby. Technically, anyone could. Once. "All you have to do, is ask." She tightened her grip to just above what would be painful. "And be prepared to pay a price."
Marie looked up at her. Somehow, despite the girl towering over her by a good two to three inches, she looked up at her. "Thank you."
Renia did not smile. "But Marie, you are to never address me by name again, do you understand?"
Her blue eyes went wide. "Yes, I - I apologize, it will never happen again, your imperial majesty."
"I believe you." Renia released her. Marie sketched a quick, frightened curtsy and ran from the room, leaving the Dowager Empress alone once again.
She'd known about a hundred men like this Count Mott character and she was sure she would go on to know hundreds more in her lifetime. Braggarts, one and all, with little political acumen, too much ambition and little worth beyond what their birth gave them. She would not miss him.
She picked up the brush again and turned back to the mirror. Only then did she notice that her pupils had become slitted within blood red irises. She huffed a laugh. It was of no consequence. Best case scenario, the girl would be hers forever. They had become well acquainted, she and the maid, sharing little, personal details. Edited on her end, of course, and no doubt just a bit of falsehood in what Marie shared with her in turn, but there was enough truth there. Worst case?
No one would miss Count Mott.
And no one worth worrying about would miss Marie.
She opened her eyes.
The twin moons were high in the sky, at the apex point before the descent, spilling their silver light into her room through the high, thin windows. Renia allowed herself a moment to admire the stars she could view through the cloudy glass before sitting up.
It has returned?
Yes, her anchor murmured. Bound still.
She smiled. These people continue to surprise me. Something in the water?
She got out of bed, running a careless left hand through the curls of her hair as she dropped the sleeping shift, and a green, brown and gold dress shrouded her. It mattered not what color she wore, or even if she wore anything at all, but it never hurt to cover all bases. She slipped her bare right arm through her Arcanum. She gestured with her right hand. Up, right, down, left.
Conceal.
The contrast of the world deepened. Shadows darkened and the silver moonlight glowed. The familiar weight was a bit off with the missing gem, but she did not allow it to bother her. She would be reclaiming it soon enough.
She slipped out of her room as a wraith, silent and unseen following a shadow.
She passed the rare servant carrying out late night duties to the dim light of candles and the odd student out passed curfew. There was one blond boy waxing poetic on the virtues of his girl with all the sincerity of a Capital lawyer, something that made her roll her eyes as she brushed past them.
There at the southern gates, two girls painstakingly crawled forward one foot in front of the other. The shorter one was being supported awkwardly as little more than dead weight by the taller one, both wearing clothes spotted with light coloring and darker splashes. It was hard to see the exact color of their clothes, until both passed from the shadows of the trees lining the southern gate path into the moonlight.
Near every inch of them was stained slickly with a deep, dark red. Marie's cream and blue dress was torn at the shoulder with a wound that could have come from a sword, and she clutched a large ruby in her fist with a white knuckled grip.
Renia dropped her concealment to make the last few steps in plain sight. "It did not go well, I take it."
Marie shuddered and listed to the side for a moment before she caught herself. She gently knelt, lowering her burden to the ground. What could only be Siesta was dressed in an evocative outfit of white silk, soaked through with bloody stains. She was barely coherent, staring up at the sky as if it held all the secrets of the world.
Resilient, she thought, recognizing the symptoms. A simple night of sleep would soothe the aftershocks. There would be nightmares and terrors. Nothing could be done about that, but for one without the potential, such light consequences were remarkable.
"That cut will have to be cleaned," she noted clinically as she knelt before them. Marie shrugged the other shoulder. Renia clucked her tongue once. "And my ruby?"
It was held out, silently. It was clean.
The Price had been paid then.
A good one that went above and beyond what the demon would have ever asked for. It was glutted, sated on blood and so it did not turn on the girl. Nothing kept it from claiming more than Marie had to give.
Nothing but a capricious whim.
A lucky whim.
"Thank you," she smiled gently as she reattached it to the palm of her right hand. "This one is very flexible," she began. "I myself use it for a variety of tasks and it performs equally well at all of them."
Marie's blue eyes silently stared up at her. Her face was pale, a cut on her brow had a bead of blood welling within it as the dried streak of old blood ran down the right side of her face.
"You could have asked this one to do anything." Renia kept the gentle smile on. "To whisk someone away, to steal into a guarded manor, to put people to sleep, to change someone's mind."
It could have.
Renia knew very well that there had been only one outcome to this.
It took a moment before the girl shuddered. "I asked it - I just wanted - " she mumbled. "I just - "
"Vengeance," Renia finished for her, savoring the word with a purr. "Was it worth it?"
Marie shuddered again, and then lunged forward, catching the queen entirely by surprise as she felt a strong, one armed grip wrap around her as Marie buried her head into Renia's shoulder. The girl's great, wracking sobs trembled through her rib cage, feeling as if it was rattling her from head to toe through her spine.
"No!" Marie howled.
It never is, Renia thought, but done properly it can be satisfying. She wrapped her arms around the girl, ignored the way the blood clung to all three of them. They were warm, even as the blood dried cold. They were children, she thought suddenly.
"It is all right," she murmured into Marie's ear softly. "Don't cry, don't cry, child. I will make it right. I will make it right." She shushed her. "Sleep," she whispered. Down, down, right. "Sleep, it will be different tomorrow."
She was suddenly reminded of Edmund.
She shoved the emotion away.
"He was a bit of a bastard, wasn't he?" Renia said to herself as she carefully tucked Siesta in. She could see glimmers, flashes of the memory of her time at the manor through her shallow mind delve. This demon wasn't like the other one, suited more for delicate work than brute force, but delicate was all she had right now. It would have to do. "Just a little."
Mott hadn't the time to spoil her. Nothing more than a few forceful kisses and unwanted touches. She'd forgotten the last time she got into a tizzy over such things. She knew she had been well over it by the time she married. She hadn't wanted to either, but she also needed a son.
And Eadred had adored her.
With a few shifts of detail, Count Mott became the vile specimen Marie thought he was. Nothing the physical proof would refute, but enough. What color had she made the drapes in Marie's memory? She faltered for a moment, then shrugged. It did not truly matter. Such a small detail would be seen as inconsequential and ever were it to become relevant one day, well, people remembered the same events differently all the time.
She got up from the bedside, sparing a glance for the ruined clothing dumped into the corner. Before her eyes, her shadows soaked up the blood and rendered the clothes to ash they then scattered about the room.
She found her way to one of the school's many balconies. The twin moons large in the sky, waxing. She hadn't been here long enough to calculate their lunar months, but Louise's memories suggested they were close. There was a bit of hope in that. That some things were so close that had no real reason to be. Not unless they were close through the Paths as well.
She hoped.
It was an uncertain, deadly road. She might never find the right one. Who knew how many 'close' worlds were out there? With one, two, or three moons? Two suns? With magic and elves and spirits…
And were she to return, what awaited her?
Time, she thought. What else could she do? Beg forgiveness from one who had chosen not to give her the chance? Hope her mortal enemy's vaunted compassion extended to her? She would have no choice then, but to bury the sorceress and let time wipe the slate clean.
She would outlive her son.
She always would have.
She circled her index finger and grasped the created cigarette. She brought it to her mouth and slowly inhaled. She exhaled the cloud of bitter smoke even as she flicked the butt away, watching it crumble into ash as it fell.
"You made it sound easy," Longueville said in lieu of a greeting. "Doing what the elves do."
"Easy," Renia murmured. She raised her right hand and waved it around vaguely in the air. "Explain how you came to be here."
"Threshold of enchanted dirt at the door of your maid." The 'secretary' moved to her side, leaning on the railing. "Dozens of people saw her run out on some kind of errand, all I needed to know was when she returned. And if it was late." Longueville brushed a strand of dark, green hair behind her ear. "And it was."
Renia smiled helplessly. "Fair enough."
"Mott?"
Renia hummed an affirmative. "With nothing but a jewel."
She didn't see her telekinetically lug two bloodstained girls through the halls of the Academy. She didn't see her bathe them, and change their clothes to put them to sleep. She wasn't sure what the woman suspected, but at least one thread would be confirmed whenever the news got out. Longueville could point fingers, but her hands were clean. What the girls remembered happening had very little to do with what actually happened, but rather a more convenient truth.
One girl storming a manor with nothing but a dress and a gem was absurd, of course. Who could say what truly occurred? Even now the remains were being altered to fit another narrative.
It would cost her, but then, it always has.
"Whatever, none of my business, right?"
She took the olive branch for what it was. "Just as your business, is none of mine."
The two shared a smile.
"It's not easy," Renia allowed. "It's delicate. It calls for discipline, wit and no small amount of stubbornness." She looked Longueville in the eyes. "Weakness is death. You can never afford to be careless, for the rest of your life."
"What else is new?" Longueville said with a secretive smile.
Renia almost said something. She almost gave a warning. She almost tried to convince the woman that it wasn't worth it. That she had to know what she was truly getting into. That all of the assumptions she was making right now were wrong. It wasn't a discipline one could learn on the way, or stumble in to. It was hard, it was harsh, it was brutal and you were damned.
Her Payment burned on her tongue.
The foreign queen came to a stop just before the forest began. The boughs of the trees loomed over them, shielding them from the glare of the twin moons in the sky. She looked around as if inspecting the area for flaws, or perhaps for watchers, before she gestured with her right arm. Longueville would love to say that she didn't follow the shine of gold around with her gaze, but that would be lying.
"Two things, I am going to need an oath from you never to reveal that I was the one who did this for you."
"Worried I'm going to blab?"
The queen smiled thinly. "In case the verdict of the Church is very much not in my favor, I would rather not have you on my conscience."
On her conscience. That was a funny way of saying 'loose end.'
Longueville held up her wand with a one armed shrug. She had already come this far. "I swear by the Founder never to reveal to anyone the - "
"Haunting," the queen said with an odd cadence and a chill went up Longueville's spine.
"The origin of the Haunting - !"
Something shuddered within her. It felt like a massive lever or switch was slowly flipping open. It shivered through her, weakening her legs and squeezing the air from her lungs. She gasped at the strange feeling, falling against a tree. The shadows seemed to move.
There was a sound of shuffling. Her head whipped towards it, finding nothing but a black cat. It yawned, vicious white teeth larger than its mouth gleamed in the darkness. It stepped forward underneath a sliver of pale moonlight, and that was when she saw the eyes.
Its shadow was full of them.
That was the moment she realized she may have underestimated everything.
"The second thing," Renia said, sounding so very far away.
"You run."